Goodbye
by Because I'm Rachel
Summary: Tobias doesn't need forever, just one more night with Rachel would be enough. It's all he needs. Post-war, one-shot.


**In The End**  
**One-Shot**

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

**Author's Note:  
**My first Animorphs fanfiction! I had to write that, haha! I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Warmth. Sun.

I woke up that morning to see the sun already high in the sky. The sun was dripping through the leaves of the trees, illuminating each one in sunshine. Bitter, spiteful, sunshine. Tempting me. Each trickling ray nudging me to take flight. Saying, _hey, the thermals'll be great today. _I just had to jump of the branch.

But the truth was that I hadn't flown in weeks. I only left the tree when starvation drove me into a fit of desperation. I was probably too weak to lift wing.

After everything that had happened, the end of the war, I let the hawk in me absorb what was left of the boy. I was all hawk. It was the only way to escape the pain. It was more than pain, what I felt. There was no word that could possibly describe it. It was mind-shattering, reality crumbling anguish. But the hawk, he was wise. He had never fallen in love with the human girl. He didn't see her beauty, _feel her essence. _That sounded corny, but again words were hopeless when an explanation was needed. There was no way to describe Rachel. She was only my everything.

But the hawk didn't feel the agony. The hawk just wanted to fly. That was the only think I held back, though. I couldn't fly. To fly would satisfy the hawk, please it. And although I relied on the hawk to keep my world from collapsing after losing her, I didn't want any part of me to feel happiness. It was too soon, too raw.

Sometimes, late at night when the hawk was ready to close his eyes, my human self broke through. My human thoughts wondered if Rachel was with me, wherever she was. If she could see my thoughts and see my suffering. Sometimes I felt like it was her fault, but I knew that that wasn't true. No one asks for death.

Sun. Warmth. Thermals.

My wings ached to open wide and embrace the air of the morning. There was no way to explain to the hawk that we would never fly again. The hawk would lose his true love too.

It was almost worse than the starvation, the dehydration. The ache of wings in wait.

* * *

Night had fallen in a crisp and blue way. I think the boy in my felt most at home during the night; that was when the color was sucked from the world to leave it monochromatic and empty. Like a broken heart. Like the blues. It was cliché, but it was true.

Weeks… weeks and weeks of sitting. Barely eating, just sitting and sleeping.

I was weak.

I opened my wings and dove into the night air.

At first, I tumbled towards the ground, but before I could hit, I beat my wings, stretching, straining. I finally pulled up, into the cool night.

It was like breathing after being underwater. Stretching after a long night sleep.

It wasn't like I had any destination in mind as I flew. But in a deeper, unconscious part of me I knew where I was going. I was headed to a place where the rocks were beaten smooth by the hatred of a brutal ocean, cracks opening up in them like miniature valleys. The water churned in a rhythmic chaos below, making it dangerous as well as hard to get to. Unless, of course, you're a bird.

I dropped lower, using my wings to slow my descent. As I sunk lower, closer to the rocks, my wings started to shift. It felt strange to touch the ground with feet rather than talons. Foreign. The rocks were cool in the night air, and they felt nice to land on. But that wasn't where my mind was right now.

A memory involuntarily rose to the surface of my mind, ripping and tearing as it ascended, which was why I pushed it down in the first place. A memory of roaring tendons and straining wings… An urn in my talons that contained…

Rachel.

It wasn't something that I was expecting, and thinking back on it, it had to be just a figment of my imagination. But I didn't care. For this moment in time, looking over the rocks in the cool of the night, I saw her glowing figure. Her back was turned to me, but I knew who it was. Silken hair, thin frame. Rachel.

She was different though. Glowing unnaturally in the moonlight. I shook it off; it was just enough to see her now.

I tried to breath her name, but no words came out. She seemed to hear me anyway, because she turned around, blue eyes lost in a forest of lush lashes. The look on her face was hard to place. Not sad, not mourning. It was as though she was at peace with what happened. Even after death and loss, she was still beautiful in a god-like way.

I took a slow, reluctant step toward her. My Rachel. Somehow, thanks to my imagination, my subconscious mind, she was with me again. My next step was more confident, yet still shaky. It was my last that threw me over the edge, lunging forward, eager to touch, feel smell her. Her skin was warm, like sunshine, which was what she appeared to be made of. Molten sunshine, as though her inner self had taken over her outer self.

I didn't know if she could talk, but her eyes said, 'I love you, Tobias.'

I would have cried if I knew how. Instead, I wrapped an arm around torso, pulling her close as I buried my face in her fluid hair, just breathing. If it would have kept her forever, I would have stayed there, holding her my arms until the end of time. But the night wouldn't last forever, so I soaked her in.

* * *

The next morning was fresh pain. Of course I had to demorph, revert back to my hawk form, during the night. It was hard, even those few seconds where our skin was separated by my feathers, but when those melted back into my skin, we were together again. We didn't need to say anything, just holding hands was enough.

If I could cry, I could start a river on the rocks. But I couldn't. I couldn't even stay around to watch her fade in the sun. So as soon as the sun began to warm the sky, I demorphed for the last time. It would be the last time I felt the breeze on my human skin, and when my fingers melted away for the last time, her hand was there, holding mine. Rachel was a mountain of strength, but her eyes were weak. They told me again that she loved me, but I had to leave.

It was harder than flying with the urn, to fly away from her. But somehow I did. I didn't want to, but I looked back. The golden glow ways fading, but I knew she was watching me fly. Watching me fly off into the sunrise.

‹Good-bye, Rachel. I love you.›


End file.
